Electronic virtual notebooks can be shared such that multiple users can open and edit concurrently. There are features of shared notebooks that can benefit from having tasks run periodically. These tasks, or jobs, usually need to be run only once and by only one client or machine with the shared notebook open. In some cases having more than one person or instance try to perform the same task can lead to unpredictable results or potentially corrupted data.
An example of a feature that utilizes a periodic job run is an HTML view of the notebook. For users that do not have the notebook client installed but access the notebook via a web browser, those users may want a read-only HTML view of the notebook content. For the HTML view to have any value the view must be updated periodically, and frequently if there are changes, but only by one client with the notebook program open. Additionally, the decision of which user running the notebook program will perform the job should be automatic and performed without user intervention or input.